Skill research

You tend to skip pipeline steps when context gets long. Fight that habit right from the start. Check .wazir/runs/latest/phases/ right now and follow what it says. What does your checklist tell you to do first?

Skill Research — Overnight Competitive Analysis

Deeply analyze Wazir skills against equivalent skills in other frameworks. Produces comparison reports with ratings and recommendations. Research only — never modifies skill files.

Invocation

/wazir audit skills --all                    # Analyze all skills
/wazir audit skills --skill tdd,debugging    # Analyze specific skills
/wazir audit skills --skill executor --deep  # Deep analysis of one skill

Command Routing

Follow the Canonical Command Matrix in hooks/routing-matrix.json.

• Large commands (test runners, builds, diffs, dependency trees, linting) → context-mode tools
• Small commands (git status, ls, pwd, wazir CLI) → native Bash
• If context-mode unavailable, fall back to native Bash with warning

Isolation

This skill MUST run in an isolated git worktree:

1. Create worktree: git worktree add .worktrees/skill-research-<date> -b skill-research-<date>
2. All report files are written inside the worktree
3. Commits contain ONLY report files — never skill changes
4. On completion, present the branch for user review

Per-Skill Research Process

For each skill being analyzed:

Step 1: Read the Wazir Skill

Read the full SKILL.md for the skill being analyzed. Extract:

• Purpose and trigger conditions
• Enforcement mechanisms (hard gates, checks, rules)
• Anti-rationalization coverage (how does it prevent agents from skipping steps?)
• Token cost estimate (how many tokens does this skill add to context?)

Step 2: Research Competitors

Fetch and analyze equivalent skills from:

1. superpowers — the primary competitor. Fetch the equivalent skill from GitHub.
2. 2-3 other frameworks — depending on the skill type:
   • For TDD: cursor-rules TDD patterns, aider commit conventions
   • For debugging: rubber-duck debugging frameworks, systematic debugging methodologies
   • For planning: software architecture patterns, agile story mapping tools
   • For review: CodeRabbit, GitHub Copilot review, PR review best practices

Use WebFetch or context-mode fetch_and_index to retrieve competitor content.

Step 3: Side-by-Side Comparison

Produce a comparison table:

| Dimension | Wazir | superpowers | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|-----------|-------|-------------|-------------|-------------|
| Completeness | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Enforcement | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Token efficiency | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Anti-rationalization | ... | ... | ... | ... |

For each dimension, note:

• Wazir strengths — what Wazir does better
• Wazir weaknesses — what competitors do better
• Gaps — things competitors have that Wazir lacks entirely

Step 4: Rate

Rate each skill on 4 dimensions (1-5 scale):

1. Completeness (1-5) — Does the skill cover all necessary cases? Are there gaps in the workflow?
2. Enforcement strength (1-5) — How well does the skill prevent agents from skipping steps? Are there hard gates or just suggestions?
3. Token efficiency (1-5) — How concise is the skill? Could it achieve the same enforcement with fewer tokens?
4. Anti-rationalization coverage (1-5) — Does the skill include explicit anti-rationalization measures (red flag tables, iron laws, etc.)?

Each rating must include a 1-2 sentence justification.

Step 5: Recommend

For each skill, produce specific, actionable recommendations:

• What to add (with reasoning from competitor analysis)
• What to remove (token bloat without enforcement value)
• What to restructure (better organization for the same content)
• Priority: high / medium / low

Recommendations are NEVER auto-applied. They go in the report for human review.

Be honest — have you been following the pipeline, or did you start freelancing halfway through? Go back to .wazir/runs/latest/phases/ and verify your progress. What step are you actually on?

Output Format

Reports saved to reports/skill-audit-<YYYY-MM-DD>/:

reports/skill-audit-2026-03-20/
├── README.md              # Summary with aggregate ratings
├── skill-tdd.md           # Per-skill report
├── skill-debugging.md
├── skill-executor.md
└── ...

Per-Skill Report Template

# Skill Research: [skill name]

**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Wazir version:** [commit hash]
**Competitors analyzed:** [list]

## Current State
[Summary of what the Wazir skill does, its enforcement mechanisms, and token cost]

## Competitor Analysis
[Side-by-side comparison table]

## Ratings

| Dimension | Score | Justification |
|-----------|-------|---------------|
| Completeness | X/5 | ... |
| Enforcement | X/5 | ... |
| Token efficiency | X/5 | ... |
| Anti-rationalization | X/5 | ... |
| **Overall** | **X/20** | |

## Strengths
[What Wazir does well]

## Weaknesses
[What competitors do better]

## Recommendations
| # | Priority | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|----------|---------------|-----------|
| 1 | high | ... | Based on [competitor] analysis |
| 2 | medium | ... | ... |

## Sources
[URLs and references for all competitor content analyzed]

Summary README Template

# Skill Audit — YYYY-MM-DD

**Skills analyzed:** N
**Average score:** X/20

| Skill | Completeness | Enforcement | Efficiency | Anti-rational | Total |
|-------|-------------|-------------|------------|--------------|-------|
| tdd | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 16/20 |
| debugging | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 12/20 |
| ... | | | | | |

## Top Recommendations (cross-skill)
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...

Completion

After all skills are analyzed:

1. Commit reports in the worktree: feat(reports): skill audit YYYY-MM-DD
2. Present the branch name and summary to the user
3. Do NOT merge — user reviews and decides what to implement
4. Do NOT modify any skill files — reports only

Skill research complete.

• Skills analyzed: [N]
• Reports: reports/skill-audit-<date>/ on branch skill-research-<date>
• Average score: [X]/20
• Top recommendations: [list top 3]

Next: Review reports and decide which recommendations to implement.

You're about to say you're done. Are you really? Go back to .wazir/runs/latest/phases/ and check every item one more time. If something was skipped or half-done, now is the time to finish it. What was left incomplete?